For my roof garden parties I try to find new recipes and go seasonal if possible. This time I made a cake with pears and a caramel syrup. The recipe is from Betty Bossi. Not only is this cake a beautiful sight on your table, but also it tastes so good (especially for one of my friends ;)), that it's gone in no time!Chocolate and pears are perfect "brothers", they compliment each other! Sadly my pears kind of developed a life of their own by moving, so they are not as nice standing up as they should. So I think, this cake is best made with short fat pears, not with longish ones like I did. Nonetheless, this cake is very good and sprinkled with the caramel syrup it's very, very delicious!

For the pears and syrup mix water, sugar, lemon juice in a wide pot and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and let caramelize to a light brownish.Take the pan from the heat and add the pear juice. Let cook covered until the caramel has dissolved again. Now add the peeled, halved and cored pears and cook them on very small heat for 5 minutes. Take the pears out and let the syrup cook until reduced to 100 ml.

For the cake mix the butter, sugar and salt. Add one egg after the other and mix well. Mix flour, chopped chocolate, cocoa powder and baking powder together and add it to the egg mixture. Fill half of this dough into a greased cake dish. Now stand the pears into this dough, fill the rest of the dough into a piping bag and pipe it around the pears into the cake dish. bake at 180 C for approx 55 minutes. Let the cake cool down, then set it onto a cake plate and drizzle with the caramel syrup.Enjoy!!